Undercover Bachelor (Undercover Matchmakers Book 1)

by Maria Geraci

  Annie sat at a table in the middle of the room, surrounded by four other women, one of whom Sam recognized as her cousin Sophie. Annie’s gaze met his with surprise and some other emotion he couldn’t make out from this far away. A crowded bar wasn’t the optimal place to have their much-needed conversation, but it had taken him all day to figure out what he was going to say.

  He’d woken up this morning with the undeniable knowledge that he had to make things right. No more lying about that letter. Even if it did put a strain between her and Bridget. He owed Annie the real reason behind his coming to Old Explorer’s Bay.

  He rehearsed his opening line in his head as he made his way to her table. But when he finally got there, all he could say was, “Hi.”

  “Hi right back.” She smiled up at him. She looked nervous. And happy. So it wasn’t just him. She felt it too. Suddenly, life was looking a whole lot better.

  Sophie, who was on Annie’s right, scooched over a seat. “Here you go,” she said, patting the now empty chair.

  Sam didn’t waste any time accepting the invitation. “Hello, ladies. I’m Sam DeLuca.”

  “Well, of course you are,” shouted the blonde on Annie’s left, trying to make herself heard over the music. A woman singing karaoke went off-key, causing the bar’s patrons to clap wildly.

  Annie’s friends went around the table, introducing themselves. A server came by and asked him what he wanted, then looked disappointed when Sam ordered a beer.

  “This is a prohibition-era themed bar,” explained Annie. “Cocktails are their specialty.”

  “Maybe next time.”

  Annie raised a quizzical brow. He’d just implied that he’d be back here in this bar. With her. He had to admit the thought was appealing.

  “So,” Reggie began, “what was it like to be on Single Gal?”

  Before he could answer, Annie said, “Just to be transparent, Reggie writes a blog for an online lifestyle magazine, but she’s promised not to write a word of what you might say. Isn’t that right, Reg?”

  Reggie used her index finger to draw an X over her chest. “I promise. Tonight is strictly off the record.”

  What was it like to be on Single Gal? He’d been humiliated on national TV. Everyone who watched the talk shows knew his personal business, and now he and his family were being hounded by the press. But if it hadn’t been for the show, he’d have never met Annie.

  He looked at her, sitting at the table surrounded by her friends, smiling. A man could drown in those brown eyes of hers.

  She could be the one.

  “Let’s just say I’ve retired from reality TV and leave it at that.” Sam took a swig of his beer. For courage. “Ladies, I hate to be rude, but I need to speak to Annie.” He stood and placed his hand out to her. “You want to go outside? It’s too loud in here to talk.”

  “With you? Of course she wants to go!” said Zoe. The women practically pulled Annie out of her seat.

  Annie shook her head like she was embarrassed, but she followed him outside to a near-empty deck facing the ocean. “You didn’t bring me out here to tell me that you changed your mind about the car, did you?”

  “No, but I spent the better part of last night thinking about what you said. You’re right. The car was a bribe.”

  “Glad to know you were listening.”

  “I told you yesterday, I always pay attention around you.”

  She sucked in a breath. It was like they were transported back to that moment yesterday when he’d almost kissed her.

  “I might be stubborn,” he said, “but I’m not stupid. The car belongs to Becks. Whatever she decides to do.”

  “You won’t be sorry about that, Sam.”

  A cool breeze danced in off the ocean, stirring her hair, lifting it gently off her shoulders. Aw, hell. He’d never know unless he went for it. Before he let the voice inside his head tell him that this was a bad idea, he leaned down and kissed her. Soft at first, then harder. She moaned, then wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

  Kissing Annie wasn’t fireworks and butterflies.

  This was more like fireworks and get a room. Now.

  He broke off the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers, trying to find the right words.

  “Wow,” she whispered. “Talk about the zing.”

  His thoughts exactly. “Before this goes any further, I have to tell you—”

  A bright light flipped on out of nowhere, startling them.

  Annie stiffened. “What is that?”

  Sam turned to find a camera less than three feet from his face. Tammy Prentis, the producer from Single Gal, looked on gleefully while Jed, one of the camera guys from the show, aimed a light directly at him. “Uh-oh, Hannah, watch out! It looks like Sam has been busy these past couple of weeks,” she said into a mic.

  This must be some bad déjà vu. Or maybe someone had spiked his beer. Sam shook his head to clear it, but Tammy and her lackey didn’t disappear. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Sam, I have great news. Hannah wants you back! Can you believe it? What do you have to say to that?” She shoved the mic under his nose. He’d love to grab it and toss it over the railing and into the ocean, but the last thing he needed was to give the tabloids anything to work with.

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” He took Annie’s hand. “Let’s go back inside.” The two of them were almost to the door, but Tammy managed to scramble ahead to block the entrance.

  “Are you Annie?” Tammy snapped her fingers at Jed, then motioned for him to redirect the camera. “The one who wrote Sam the letter?”

  “What?” Annie squeaked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Did you know that Sam came here to talk you out of breaking up with your boyfriend?”

  It felt as if the room had been turned upside down.

  Annie looked up at him. “You read my letter? But … how?” The accusation in her voice made him wince. “That’s why you came to Old Explorer’s Bay?”

  “Annie, listen to me. Yeah, I read your letter but—”

  She pulled her hand from his. “It all makes sense now. That whole scene at the café. How you knew all that stuff about me, and the … unfortunate incident. Oh my God. You came here because you felt sorry for me. But I don’t understand. You don’t want me to break up with Walter?”

  “Not at first, but now, yeah. Hell yeah, I want you to break up with him.” He turned to give Tammy his most intimidating glare. “You have about three seconds to get out of here before I call the cops.”

  “This is a free country,” she said. “Besides, read your contract. We can request post-show interviews for up to six months. Consider this one of them.”

  “Consider your request denied. Haven’t you been notified about the restraining order yet?”

  “What restraining order?” she asked with a confidence that told him she had no clue what he was talking about.

  Shit. Tammy was right. There was no restraining order. He’d meant to call Stella this morning and get legal on board, but he’d been too busy thinking about what he was going to say to Annie tonight.

  “Look,” he said to Annie, “don’t be mad at Bridget because she thought she was doing the right thing, but she mailed me your letter. I had no idea that it hadn’t come from you. I came to town to try to convince you not to break up with Walter, but not because I felt sorry for you. I just didn’t want to be responsible for you doing something you might regret later based on something I said on TV. And …” This was going to sound bad, but he wanted to be completely honest with her. “Becks and I made a trade. If she went to her college visits, then I’d come here to meet you.”

  He could see her struggle to take it all in. “Your sister wanted you to meet me? But why? I don’t understand.”

  “Because she loved your letter. So did my mom. They thought you were perfect for me.”

  “This is fantastic stuff!” Tammy crowed. “It’s like something from one of those old rom-co
ms. You’re getting all this on film, aren’t you?” she asked Jed.

  Enough, already. Maybe Jed had more sense than Tammy. “If you don’t want to get your ass sued, then I suggest you put that camera down now,” Sam growled.

  Jed lowered his camera, giving Sam a long look before he turned to Tammy. “Let’s get out of here before this guy blows. We got enough film to put together a good five-minute clip.”

  “Oh … fine,” she snapped.

  The light came off. Sam blinked, readjusting his vision. Now that he could focus, he could see that a crowd of bar patrons, including Annie’s friends, had gathered onto the deck, forming a semicircle around them.

  “What’s going on?” asked Sophie. “Someone said they were taping an interview for a network show out here.”

  Reggie tapped Jed on the shoulder. “Excuse me, but did you get permission before you started filming?”

  “We don’t need permission,” Tammy said. “We own this guy for the next six months.”

  The crowd began whipping out their cell phones, snapping pictures and taking video.

  “Hey!” said a female voice. “Isn’t that Gas Station Sam? What’s he doing here?”

  “Sam!” someone yelled. “Can I take a selfie with you?”

  “Please tell me this isn’t happening,” Annie muttered.

  Sophie marched over and put her arm around Annie’s shoulder. “Break it up,” she told the crowd. “Show’s over.”

  One of the servers who’d been gawking along with the rest of the onlookers took Sophie’s lead and began whisking people back inside the bar.

  “Let me get this straight. You really don’t want another chance on the show?” Tammy asked incredulously.

  Sam glared at her in response.

  “Okay, okay. I get it. We’re out of here. If we hurry,” she said to Jed, “we can make it to Jacksonville to catch the red-eye back to LA.”

  “Not so fast,” Sam said. “Before you leave, you owe it to me to tell me how you found me.”

  “Sorry, but I can’t out a source.” She glanced over at Annie, and her expression softened. “But I will tell you one thing. Once I got to town, it wasn’t hard to figure out where you were. People here love to talk. If I were you, honey, I’d get away from this place, or that unfortunate incident is going to haunt you for the rest of your life.”

  “What was that about?” Sophie asked once Tammy and Jed had cleared out. The distrust in her eyes made Sam’s stomach go sour. Not that he blamed her. She was just looking out for her cousin.

  It was Annie who answered. “It’s a long story. And one that I prefer to talk to Sam about in private. If you don’t mind?” she said to the girls.

  “Okay,” Sophie relented, “but if you need us, we’ll be right inside.” She led the other women away, leaving him and Annie alone on the deck.

  Sam dragged a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way. Please believe me when I tell you that I was about to tell you everything right before that camera crew descended on us.”

  Annie studied him a minute, then sighed. “I believe you.”

  Relief swamped him. “Great.” He reached out to her, but she jerked back.

  “Sam, this isn’t going to work.”

  He frowned. “How do you know it isn’t going to work?”

  “Because for one thing, I still have a boyfriend.”

  “Not for long.”

  “True, but I owe it to Walter to break up with him before I start anything new. And I’m looking for a new job. And you live in Texas …” She shrugged.

  “You could move to Dallas. It’s a great city. Lots of opportunities. Hell, I could get you a job at—”

  She put a hand in the air to stop him. “I already uprooted my life once for a man. And that relationship was a lot further along than this one. I’m sorry, Sam, but we’ve only known each other two days. The timing is all wrong. And as tempted as I am to just say the hell with it and run back to your hotel room to finish what we started, I could never do that to Walter.”

  “So that’s it? We aren’t even going to try to make this work?”

  “Maybe in a few months, once everything has settled down and I know where I’m going to land, we can get back in touch.”

  “Get back in touch? Look, I know it’s a huge gamble, but you said it yourself, people who only do the crossword puzzle in pencil never take any real risks. Aren’t you and I worth taking a risk on too?”

  “Don’t throw that letter back in my face.”

  “Why not? Didn’t you write it?”

  She acted as if he’d slapped her. “Of course I wrote it. But there’s a huge difference between doing a puzzle in ink and uprooting my life for a man who could very well end up breaking my heart. It’s just not practical.”

  This wasn’t going the way he’d imagined. But if he wanted Annie to be honest with herself, then he was going to have to be honest with himself as well.

  “Becks once accused me of being a closet romantic. At the time I thought she was crazy, but you know what? She was right. All that stuff I said on TV? I meant it. My grandfather was a real asshole, but he got two things right in his life. My grandmother Ruth and my mom. He used to say that when he met my grandmother, it was love at first sight. I always thought it was a load of sentimental bullshit. Until I read your letter. I told myself that I was coming out here to hide from the press and to make sure Becks did her college trips, but the truth is, it was your letter that made me travel a thousand miles. Because I wanted to meet the woman who wrote it.”

  “That’s … really flattering.”

  Flattering? Now he was the one who felt like he’d been slapped. “So, what? That’s it?”

  She nodded. “For now. And I understand why you didn’t tell me about the letter.” On what looked like an impulse, she reached out and hugged him. “Best of luck to you, Sam. Whatever else happened, you really did change my life.”

  13

  Annie was staring out the window, wondering how she was going to get through the next few hours, when she heard the door to her office swing open. There was only one person in the company who didn’t bother knocking. And it wasn’t her father. Or her brother either.

  “What do you want, Bridget? Or should I say, Brutus?” She swung around to find her father’s assistant standing in front of her with a cup of coffee in one hand. “Trying to salve your conscience?”

  “What? With this?” Bridget raised the cup to her lips and took a long sip. “I already told you. Offering to bring you coffee was a one-time deal. And I thought we were past this. Like I said this morning, while I’m sorry I went behind your back, I’m not sorry I sent the letter. Without that letter, you’d have never met Sam DeLuca.”

  Bridget was right. If she’d never sent the letter, Annie would have never met Sam. Thoughts of him and that kiss had kept her distracted all day. There was also the matter of what she was going to say to Walter tonight at dinner. She’d spent the last hour rehearsing it in her head, but nothing seemed right.

  “If you didn’t come to bring me coffee, then what are you doing here? It’s past five on a Friday. Shouldn’t you be out TGIF’ing it somewhere?”

  “Sam DeLuca is here.”

  “Here? Now?” Her hand automatically flew up to smooth down her hair.

  “I thought that would perk you up. He’s here to pick up his car. Or so he says.”

  Calm down, girl. He isn’t here to see you. She fought the urge to run out the door and tell him that she’d changed her mind. That she’d find a job in Dallas. That she’d give their relationship a shot. Even at the expense of a potentially better job somewhere else.

  But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t run after a man again. She’d learned that mistake with Russell. If the universe wanted her and Sam together, things would naturally work out on their own. Right?

  “It makes complete sense that Sam is here,” Annie said. “After all, he did buy a car from us.”

  “Are
you going to talk to him?”

  “I don’t normally interact with the customers. Is there a reason I should talk to him?”

  “I give up,” Bridget snapped. “You can bring the mule to water, but you can’t make the stubborn ass drink.”

  “You’re—”

  “Fantastic? Wonderful? One of a kind?” she quipped.

  “Definitely the last one.”

  Bridget smiled ruefully. “I’m going to miss you when you leave.”

  “How do you know I’m leaving?” Annie had contacted a headhunter this morning, but the only people she’d told were her parents and Frank Jr. This was Old Explorer’s Bay, however, where the only thing that flowed freer than the iced tea was the gossip. She sighed. “Does everyone else at the dealership know too?”

  “Don’t worry. They’ve all promised to keep their mouths shut until after you and Walter have the talk.”

  “Which happens in forty-five minutes, by the way.”

  “Let me guess? Six o’clock on the nose at The Miramar Café? The usual booth?”

  Annie nodded. “After today’s episode of Good Morning, USA, I would have preferred meeting for breakfast, but Walter wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “No worries. I doubt he or anyone else at that stuffy law firm of his watches any of the morning shows.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Bridget said diplomatically.

  “Sure it wasn’t. Doesn’t every guy want to see his almost fiancé kissing another guy on national television?” To prove her point, Annie hit the play button on her computer keyboard.

  An image of Kelly Seacrest smiling gleefully into the camera lit up the screen. “For those of you who’ve been inundating the network asking for an update on Gas Station Sam, today’s your lucky day! Producers caught up with him outside an undisclosed bar somewhere in Florida. And ladies, I’m sorry to say, he wasn’t alone.”

  She gritted her teeth as she watched the most embarrassing eighty-five seconds of her life unfold on national television. Bridget hung over Annie’s shoulder to look at the screen. “My fav part is when Sam threatens to sue them. He’s practically growling. I know we’re not supposed to like the whole caveman routine, but Sam DeLuca could make a nun rethink her vows. ”